Parental leave luring more dads

Fathers taking time off with new baby
find it easier than moms to get back to
work: report

Shannon Proudfoot, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Thursday, June 14, 2007

More Canadian fathers are taking time off
work after the birth or adoption of a child, but
they return to work much sooner than mothers and
find the transition easier, a Statistics Canada
report released yesterday has found.

The proportion of mothers taking leave after
the arrival of a child remained stable at nearly
90 per cent between 2001 and 2006, but during
the same period, the share of fathers who stayed
home rose to 55 per cent from 38 per cent. This
might be due to extended leave benefits of up to
35 weeks, the report speculates, making mothers
more inclined to "share" leave time with their
spouse or partner.

While 62 per cent of mothers found the
transition back to work stressful and one-fifth
of them described it as very stressful, nearly
two-thirds of fathers (65 per cent) said it gave
them little trouble.

"We have a bit of a double message going out to
parents," says Donna Lero, Jarislowsky Chair in
Families and Work at the University of Guelph.
"We know and recognize that a father's
involvement is very positive. But when it comes
to parenting babies, there is a unique
responsibility which is (thought to be) the
mother's and a lot of the debate about child
care and staying at home is really about moms,
not about dads."

Low fertility rates are a
significant concern in Canada, she says, but
government policies don't make it easy for
anyone to juggle child care, career, finances
and family life.

Eight in 10 parents admitted they would have
stayed home longer if finances had permitted.
Reasons for returning to work were similar for
men and women, except that more men (40 per
cent) worried about losing their jobs, while
more women (26 per cent) felt isolated at home.

In spite of the challenges, 86 per cent of
those polled told Statistics Canada they were
ultimately satisfied with their return to work.

Even so, nearly one-quarter of parents (23
per cent) didn't go back to work at all, with
more than half of them citing a desire to raise
their children themselves. Another 24 per cent
did not return to the workforce because child
care was too expensive and eight per cent
remained at home because they lost their job or
their employer wasn't offering the position they
wanted.

More than 3.2 million Canadians welcomed new
children by birth or adoption between 2001 and
2006.

Ottawa government worker Tim Stupich took
seven months' parental leave after his son,
Cameron, was born in February 2002, while his
wife, Catherine Francis, took a year's worth of
paid and unpaid leave. When Mr. Stupich
eventually returned to the office, he felt
better knowing their son was with Ms. Francis
rather than a babysitter.

Even so, he faced a different sort of stress
among co-workers and business associates: "I
felt there still seemed to be a stigma about
fathers staying home. I would take a lot of
joking about that and it was something that of
course would never be done for a woman after
returning from having a baby. But I think that
attitude is changing."

After the April 2006 arrival of Sabrina, the
couple's second child together (they have a
blended family that includes seven children and
a lot of soccer games), financial considerations
kept Mr. Stupich from taking more than a week
off.

"It was a stress that lasted for a long time,
because every day I was at work and I was
feeling that the bond wasn't developing there as
quickly as I would have liked," he says.

The
Statistics Canada report shows 35 per cent of
parents did not take any paid or unpaid leave
from their jobs following birth or adoption.
Four in 10 said finances got in the way, 37 per
cent blamed their working conditions and 25 per
cent said they didn't want to compromise their
careers.